


hold your vision (always looking back at you)

by ignited



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Breakfast, Established Relationship, M/M, Rimming, Schmoop, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignited/pseuds/ignited
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If Bucky were awake right now, Steve reasons he’d say: Don’t laugh.</i> Bucky gets a very special tattoo. Steve is desperate to see it, but life keeps getting in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold your vision (always looking back at you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [memphis86 (memphis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/memphis/gifts).



> Written for **memphis86** based off a prompt of Bucky getting a tramp stamp. Yep. Many thanks to **regala_electra** and **memphis86** for the help and input!

If Bucky were awake right now, Steve reasons he’d say: _Don’t laugh_.

They could have a laugh about all this the next time they’re on a break, maybe in some dive bar off of 2nd Avenue doing shots. _Fine, Steve, don’t listen to me. Laugh it up, fuzzball_ , Bucky might say, picking up lines from movies they’ve missed over the decades and are just now catching up on.

But Bucky is not awake. He’s passed out cold, fully dressed and face down on Steve’s bed.

On _Steve’s_ bed. Bucky has his own bed, but it’s farther down the hall. They spend most nights together—they’re a few months into this new normal, or what Bucky calls “playing house” sometimes—but they need space every once in a while, so they’re still using separate rooms. Steve surveys the damage: a broken lamp, and there’s a chunk missing out of the doorframe. He guesses a windmilling metal arm splintering wood did most of the damage when Bucky staggered over to the bed and dropped off into dreamland.

Bucky doesn’t snore that often; never been one for deep sleep. Steve starts to shuck off his own shoes and jacket. He’d been gone for the past few days on a mission and he’d hoped to arrive home earlier. But it’s a real welcome sight to come home to; at least Bucky isn’t drooling on his pillow. (He’s doing real nice work on the bed sheet though.)

Steve bends down to pick up Bucky’s boots, and the movement wakes Bucky up, groaning and shifting against the covers.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says softly, “You—” Bucky’s jacket and shirt rides up just then, and the small of his back has a—the skin is red, and shiny, and no, Steve can’t be seeing things. Because his vision’s telling him one thing, but the logic part of his brain is telling him another. It must be some trick of light, because Steve can’t believe that he saw dark ink on the small of Bucky’s back; it looks like Bucky has a… tattoo?

“Huh,” Bucky mumbles, falling back down and _now_ he starts snoring. 

Perfect time for him to twist against the sheets, blocking the skin from Steve’s view.

 

 

 

Steve doesn’t get to ask Bucky about it for the next few days, not even in the coming morning, because like clockwork, there’s mission after mission and no downtime. Seems endless, the sinister plots super villains are churning out these days. Steve doesn’t see hide nor hair of Bucky until about two weeks later and even then, Bucky is covered head to toe in his black gear so Steve can’t exactly tell him to strip for inspection right then and there. 

So they’re on a mission, shoulder to shoulder and flat on their bellies on a roof, when Steve catches himself trying to steal a glance at the dark shadow of Kevlar and leather that makes up Bucky’s lower back.

“What?”

Steve blinks. “What?”

“Someone behind us?” Bucky asks, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. “Cap?”

Steve grunts. “Two o’clock.”

“I see ‘em,” Bucky says, lifting his rifle to fire a tranquilizer dart at the HYDRA guard below them. They watch Natasha slip into the facility effortlessly, and now they wait. Steve misses the old crackle of radio static; instead the news is delivered crisply over the comm as Natasha makes her way to the target.

“Sorry,” Steve says. He shifts his weight, glancing at Bucky’s night vision goggles. “Thought I saw somethin’.”

“If you wanted to get a look at my ass, now’s not the time,” Bucky says. “Natasha?”

Steve strains as he looks over the edge, hearing a series of punches over the comm. “Busy!” Natasha responds.

“Damn it. Come on,” Steve says, trying to pull away quietly. 

Bucky swears under his breath, but with the mask on, it sounds like a huff.

 

 

 

It’s another week. It’s at the point where Steve is mostly concerned about how to bring the issue up during one of his SHIELD directed psych evaluations; is there a point where he might be masturbating too much because his boyfriend is a goddamn cocktease?

Steve thinks Bucky might be doing it on purpose—they’re on different coasts working missions, then different countries a few days later. He only hears Bucky’s voice on a comm, or gets an occasional text.

He hasn’t seen him in the flesh for ages now, and he keeps thinking back to that one night. The reddened skin of Bucky’s back, the curves of ink below the dip of his spine. He wonders if the tattoo spreads down over his ass or swirls around and over his hipbones. Where does the tattoo end and when can Steve get his mouth on it?

It could just be shadows and Steve’s obsessing over _nothing_ , but god, he needs to know.

 

 

 

Another two days and Steve’s jerking off in the shower when he hears the front door open, “it’s me,” in Bucky’s voice.

Steve finishes up as best he can, deep breaths as he washes off. He tries not to rush out of the shower, taking his time with getting dressed when he’s done.

Bucky is cooking when Steve arrives in the kitchen a few minutes later, gripping the pan with his metal hand.

“Showoff,” Steve says, nodding at Bucky’s hand.

Bucky smiles. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Steve’s not sure if he should ask Bucky where he’s been or give him space, or not bring up what’s been on his mind for the past few weeks, so he settles for, “You too,” and sits abruptly at the table.

This is going well.

Bucky serves Steve food and grabs a plate for himself; he’s got dark circles and the look of a rough night on him. “So. I was gonna—”

“Tell me something about your, um. Shit,” Steve interrupts, words spilling out before he can take a chance to think over what to say. “Sorry, I saw it and… Yeah. Saw it.”

“I didn’t get it when I was drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Bucky mutters. He’s poking a fork at his scrambled eggs, avoiding Steve’s eyes. “They’re not gonna ink me while I’m drunk. Got drunk after. They’ve got _rules_ about those kind of things now.”

“Uh huh.”

“Besides, Coulson was with me. He wouldn’t—”

Steve coughs, bacon almost goes down the wrong pipe. “Coulson was with you that night?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “We did shots.”

“You did shots. With Coulson.” Steve doesn’t like how his voice gets a little high at the end of it.

“We were… Celebrating after I got it,” Bucky says, wolfing down his eggs and finally looking up at Steve. The mood seems to shift, like a weight’s been lifted now that they’re talking about it. “That a problem?”

“No problem, there’s no problem.” He hesitates. “Just, uh. Why there?”

“Don’t tell me Stark was right about that whole prude act you’ve got him hung up on. He doesn’t know you like I do.”

Steve exhales, and his fork clatters on the plate. “It’s a tramp stamp, Bucky.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Who told you about tramp stamps?”

“The internet,” Steve says, and then after a beat, “I might’ve asked Natasha.”

He did ask her. He thought it’d be a better alternative to bringing it up at a psych evaluation.

It was a weird conversation.

“You did research, is what you’re saying.” Bucky smirks. “I’d have paid real money to hear you ask Natasha about them. You turned a little pink when you said it. It’s cute.”

Course correcting this conversation, Steve tries to get serious for a moment, hopelessly failing at it. “You got a tramp stamp of me.”

“Of Captain America,” Bucky corrects.

“Of _me_ ,” Steve repeats. 

“Yeah, well, the star on my arm’s for the Russians, maybe I—” Bucky clears his throat. “Maybe I wanted something just for you.”

They’re quiet for a moment, mostly because Steve’s at a loss for words, and he really doesn’t want to break the juice glasses on the table if he lunges at Bucky’s mouth right now.

“That’s gotta be the craziest thing I’ve ever said to you,” Bucky says, a metal finger poking at the remains of his eggs.

“Shut up and show me,” Steve says, and with two strides Bucky’s chest is at eye level. Steve’s fingers deftly work Bucky’s belt, pulling it loose and Bucky shimmies his jeans down, turns, and there it is, black lines of the Cap wings and a bold ‘A’ in the middle, right above the swell of his ass cheeks.

Steve sucks in a breath, fingers brushing the ink before he settles them on the cut of Bucky’s exposed hipbones, brings him closer.

“Not one of my best ideas,” Bucky says, and now he’s pulling his shirt up and over, smiling. “You know me.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “You’re full of those.”

He lets Bucky turn and hook an arm around his neck, and Bucky sits on Steve’s lap heavily. Bucky is only a fraction smaller than him now; the years have filled him out with muscle that Steve holds on to.

His thumb brushes the edge of ink before he slips a hand under Bucky’s jeans and boxers, cups his ass and says, “Bed. Now.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

 

 

 

Afterwards—after Steve has Bucky on his hands and knees, after he’s spread Bucky’s asscheeks apart and slid his tongue down the crack, after he gets the most ragged, deep moans out of Bucky—they lie shoulder to shoulder once more.

Bucky lies on his belly, metal arm reaching down over the bed edge as he flips through Steve’s sketchbook. Steve is itching to pull the book up and preserve the moment; it’s like he has to commit it to paper before they’re pulled in different directions.

Instead, he kisses the seam of Bucky’s shoulder, murmurs against the slightly warm metal, “That’s private.”

“Lot of nudes.” Bucky points at his likeness, one of many. “I don’t look like that.”

“You look like a jerk,” Steve says. Bucky nudges him hard with his metal shoulder. “Ow.”

“Draw me another one.”

Steve snakes a hand down, running his fingers over the curve of Bucky’s back. “Another jerk, comin’ right up.”

Bucky shifts his weight, turning to face Steve. “Another tattoo.”

“Oh.” Steve blinks. “Right.”

He’s all too aware of Bucky’s face inches away, of the way he moans against his lips when they kiss. Bucky pushes his tongue into Steve’s mouth and pulls back with a wet smack. “Better make it a good one or you won’t see me for another month,” Bucky teases.

Steve grunts. “Thanks for the support.”

Bucky nips at Steve’s jaw, his voice low. “What can I say? I _am_ your biggest fan.”

_end_


End file.
